


Fire, Flames, Lost, Found

by PallanMinerva



Category: Fate/stay night & Related Fandoms
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-12
Updated: 2019-10-12
Packaged: 2020-12-14 00:09:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21006455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PallanMinerva/pseuds/PallanMinerva
Summary: He walks, burning inside and out. There is barely anything left inside of him to catch alight, and yet, he still walked. The unceasing pace of a broken man.





	Fire, Flames, Lost, Found

Kiritsugu's hands ached. They were beginning to turn purple from the amount of bruises painted onto them. He had been awake for over twenty-four hours, and while under the best of circumstances he could probably have managed to complete any objective he had set for himself, he barely had the mental capacity to even walk right now. Sharp pebbles dug into his shins as he threw aside stone after stone, wooden beam after brick, tried to lift aside cement shards to find someone, _anyone_. Just one person. That's all he needed in that moment, he was begging anyone and anything that would answer, just one damn person.

The Grail had vomited its contents onto Fuyuki because of him. It was barely an hour ago, but it felt like he had been wandering the ashes of his decision for days. His vision would become unfocused, sometimes darkening altogether. Likely an effect of having touched the disgusting black sludge spread in clumps across the town. But he did not fall down, he did not stop moving. His body was not allowed to fail right now. Not now, after the greatest failure of his life.

_Shirley._

Her smile bloody, begging for death.

_Natalia._

A cool resignation brushed off with laughter.

_Iri. Illya._

They hadn't been real. The Grail was just using his own memories against him, trying to convince him to engage it so that it could taint the world and make his wish a nightmare. Yet, that memory was still stuck in his head, tearing at the fragments of his psyche. His ideals had led him down a path so dark that he shot his own wife and child to see them fulfilled.

He did not feel like a Hero of Justice.

He fell forward onto another pile of rubble. A brick fell onto his left hand and he felt a bone snap near his middle knuckle. He didn't have the energy to even groan. He only picked himself up and tried to flex the hand, able at least to wince at the pain, though not overly concerned about it. He had Avalon, and that made fighting through it much easier.

_Pain is temporary, but suffering is eternal._

Had he felt more energized, perhaps he would have laughed darkly. As it was, he just pushed another stone aside.

Another.

Another.

A tuft of red-orange hair caught his eye. He pulled one final stone off and saw the face of a small boy. The eyes were blank and unfocused, there were scratches and burns all over his head, and his clothes were torn, but he could see that the boys chest was rising and falling.

_He's alive._

A shiver started at the base of his spine and slowly crawled all the way up to his neck.

_He's alive._

The muscles in his arms flexed and unflexed, he felt them start to shake uncontrollably.

_He's **alive**._

Kiritsugu tore one last piece of rubble that covered the boy's legs and picked him up by the torso. At some point he had started crying, his tears blending in with the rain. His entire body was racked with sobs, and he couldn't stop shaking. He hugged the boy to him.

"Thank God." He whispered, again and again. "Thank God. You're alive. You're alive. You're alive!"

His heart, shattered and torn after having been numbed for so long, slowly pieced itself together as he cried, holding the boy. He didn't know his name. He didn't know his family. But he knew that right here, right now, for the first time in his entire life, he was _finally_ able to save someone.

"Thank God." He said one more time, releasing the boy from his tight hug, taking his small hand and putting it against his rough, unshaven cheek. "You're alive."

**Author's Note:**

> I'm going to be importing my Fate stories from fanfiction.net, and this recent small one-shot will be the first. Thanks for checking it out.


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